Several Bay Area educators face consequences for First Amendment actions

BRENTWOOD — At the end of the school year, Tyler Rust’s future was still in limbo. Rust has faced turbulence the past few weeks after remaining firm in his decision to kneel during flag-raising ceremonies in protest of police brutality.

The United States history teacher faced backlash from some students, parents and administrators after a video was circulated of him kneeling during a routine flag-raising ceremony by the school’s Jr. ROTC. Soon after the video, the Liberty Union High School District told Rust he was being transferred from Heritage High School to Liberty High School, another campus in Brentwood. The district would not give the exact reason for the decision, aside from vague comments about “controversial topics,” school district policies and that Rust was “causing disruption.”

Rust is not the first Bay Area educator to be called out and punished for exercising what they believe are their First Amendment rights.

• Phil Morales, former principal at Milpitas High School, was suspended for two days in November 2016 after a video circulated of him cursing during a student walkout to protest the election of President Donald Trump.

Ironically, Morales had directed the students to the football field for their safety and requested that they keep their discussion appropriate and civilized. But the video clearly shows Morales yelling “F– Donald Trump,” after students are heard goading him to say it. Morales said earlier this month that the video segment did not show the lead-up to the salty declaration.

“I said, ‘If you could say all these things, you could say f— Trump, and it doesn’t necessarily change what’s gonna happen, we need to come together and still be a group that is going to be accepting and that sort of thing,’ ” he said.

Morales said he regrets using expletives, though he maintains his words were used in reference to hypothetical speech about Trump, not directly used by him, as is shown in the video.

“Thinking back a bit, I shouldn’t have used the ‘F-word,’ ” he said. “I regret using that language. I mark it down as professional growth for me, thinking about my role as the leader of that particular group.”

• Frank Navarro, a former teacher at Mountain View High School, was disciplined for drawing parallels between then-Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler.

Navarro, who taught world studies at the school for 40 years before retiring last school year, is a Mandel Fellow at the Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.

According to news reports at the time, Navarro said that on Nov. 10, 2016, he was called to a meeting with then-Associate Superintendent Eric Goddard and Principal Dave Grissom, where he was informed he was being placed on paid leave while the school conducted an investigation into “serious allegations about what is happening in class.”

But once word leaked to the student newspaper and subsequently to national media, the district quickly concluded its investigation and invited him back.

“I would argue because of (Trump’s) continued attacks on the press and his violation of political norms and demonization of the people, that he is testing the American political system,” Navarro said May 31 of his decision to make the comparison in his classes.

Mountain View Los Altos School District Superintendent Jeff Harding would not discuss the case, only to say that much of what Navarro told the student newspaper surrounding the reasons for his leave were “a fabrication.”

• Spencer Smith, former Heritage High School history teacher, was disciplined after a photo of him dressed as Trayvon Martin — wearing a hoodie, holding Skittles and flashing a peace sign — was published in the school yearbook.

Smith said he did not expect the photo to end up in the yearbook and in fact had always requested that his photo not be used in the annual publication. He said the unconventional picture was not intended to cause disruption, rather to raise awareness for police brutality in African-American communities.

“My take on it was we all take different ID pictures, and to emphasize what was happening with policing in African-American communities, that was my ID picture,” he said. “I was just emphasizing what was happening in black communities for my ID. I wasn’t trying to bring controversy.”

Though Smith was not at school when the yearbook came out, he said Superintendent Eric Volta appeared at his classroom door the next day and pointed him to the “controversial issues” section in district policies, which states “exercise professional judgment when deciding whether or not a particular issue is suitable for study or discussion.”

Volta declined a request to comment, but referred this newspaper to the pertinent section of the district policy.

Though Smith now teaches at Mount Diablo High School in Concord, he and Volta both declined to say whether his leave was by choice, force or a mutual decision.

David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the limits and freedoms of the First Amendment in high schools “really play out on a case-by-case and fact-by-fact basis.”

While the United States Supreme Court ruled school administrators are required to provide sufficient reason for regulating speech, Snyder said the wording is so broad that most districts adopt their own standards, which differ from that of other government agencies.

As of Monday afternoon, a petition supporting Rust had received about 18,500 signatures. About 100 students attended a school board meeting May 23 asking the board to reverse its decision to transfer the teacher.

“You’re supposed to acknowledge the flag when it’s being raised. I acknowledge it by taking a knee,” Rust said. “If you have a point of view, this is one way that you can express yourself legally, legitimately and in an American tradition.”

Superintendent Volta declined to discuss specifics. He cited the “controversial topics,” part of the school district’s policies and said Rust was “causing disruption.”

However, Snyder said Rust’s case could be seen as unconstitutional, though these cases are “murky.”

“Barring some facts showing that his activity really was disruptive, it feels like an action based on political speech that the school district simply disagrees with,” he said. “There you start getting into dangerous territory with violating First Amendment rights.”